tuber

/ˈtubər/

/ˈtubə/

Other forms: tubers

A tuber is a plant that mainly grows underground. Potatoes and yams are tubers — and they're delicious with a little butter and salt.

The part of a potato plant that can be eaten is its thickened underground stem — and officially, that's the part of the plant considered a tuber. Potatoes are a stem tuber, while sweet potatoes are root tubers. There are slight differences in the way these different types of tubers grow new plants, but they're all basically edible roots. In Latin the word tuber means "edible root," but also "lump, bump, or swelling."

Definitions of tuber

1. noun

   a fleshy underground stem or root serving for reproductive and food storage
   types:

   water chestnut

   edible bulbous tuber of a Chinese marsh plant

   groundnut, potato bean, wild bean

   nutlike tuber; important food of Native Americans

   Jerusalem artichoke

   edible tuber of the Jerusalem artichoke

   yam

   edible tuber of any of several yams

   type of:

   stalk, stem

   a slender or elongated structure that supports a plant or fungus or a plant part or plant organ